Villagers in this small textile town thought Saeed Mehmood ul Hasan had a pipeline to God. They believed that his Koranic maxims â€” sometimes scrawled onto wadded scraps of paper, stuffed into a leather pouch and worn around the neck â€” could cure headaches, mend an ailing kidney or patch up a family rift.

Allah Wasaya was among those who believed, and last year he hired Hasan to resolve a family spat over money. He and his family stopped believing, Wasaya said, when they determined that Hasan's remedy was a diversion for darker pursuits. After sending Wasaya's wife to a butcher to buy a black goat's head that he said was needed to work his magic, Hasan raped the couple's 15-year-old daughter, who was alone in her bedroom, Wasaya recently recalled....